Friday, December 21, 2007

This Post Gave Me Chills

I can't believe you still check my blog.

By the way, I've decided to stop calling You Never Can Tell with Bees a "blog" on the grounds that blogs are stupid. From now on, I will replace the word "blog" with "Cool Reinman Awesome Page" -- as in, "Man, I hate posting to my Cool Reinman Awesome Page" and "There sure are a lot of crappy Cool Reinman Awesome Pages out there on the intranets."

Anyway, my return to the world of Cool Reinman Awesome Paging was prompted by a recent Lord of the Rings marathon with the Jilb. Watching three theatrical cuts over three nights (no awkward pacing and unintentionally hilarious costumed hijinks in Mordor for us!), I was pleased to discover that two automatic-chill scenes retained their power for me -- Gandalf leading the charge down the hill at the end of Two Towers, and the Rohirrim's arrival to the giant battle in Return of the King.

The power of Gandalf's scene in Two Towers is obvious -- the build-up with hopeless circumstances; the decision, against all odds, to ride out and meet the enemy; the sounding of the horn; and then, of course, the payoff, as Gandalf, in all his Christ-metaphorical glory, appears atop the hill to lead the victory.

As for the second one, in a movie with multiple potential chill scenes -- Sam carrying Frodo up the mountain, Aragorn whispering "for Frodo" before charging into a sea of Orcs, everyone bowing down to the four Hobbits during ending number three (of seventeen) -- it seems odd that the only time I get chills during The Return of the King is, once again, when the Rohirrim thunder into battle.

Maybe it's the horns.

It just goes to show that there is no accounting for chills. For instance, I love Lawrence of Arabia. The film stirs something in me that's difficult to describe in words. And yet, I never get chills watching it. The same goes for a number of other films I admire -- Raiders of the Lost Ark, Master and Commander, Starting Tomorrow -- nothing.

I am clearly, then, not liberal with my chills -- I only have three automatic-chill scenes -- which makes it all the more remarkable that two of those scenes are in Lord of the Rings. The third (and original) automatic-chill scene is Tevye shouting, "No Chava," while pulling the cart away in Fiddler on the Roof. Gets me every time.

Scenes That Have Chilled In The Past But Are Not Necessarily Automatic:

Sometimes you don't expect to get chills -- like when you're watching Two Towers and your dad calls, and your XBox 360 tells you that Tenacious Drew is online, and the dog is barking, and the baby is digging her nails into your left ear -- but then you see Gandalf on his white horse and against all odds, you get chills anyway.

And then sometimes you try to still get chills, like during Aragorn's underwhelming speech at the Black Gate, but it just doesn't happen, so you move on with your life.

And then once, for some inexplicable reason, you get chills when the Ents start marching (hurrah, hurrah?).

Maybe it was cold in the room that night. (Actually, I blame it on Howard Shore.)

And that's why everyone's chill scenes are different.

So, friends of mine (I didn't really mean the "jerk" thing earlier), for the Comments Portion of this post, feel free to expand the chill list. What movie scenes give you the chills?

Remember, there are no wrong answers -- only wrong movies. Like The Princess Bride.